The Businesses of Industrial and Organic Food and its effect on Human Health - Coursework Example

?Industrial Food versus Organic Food and Human Health Introduction What we are, or have become, is not just meat but “corn and oil” according to Michael Pollan in his book, The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals. This is a quote that is hard to accept as true behind the health and environmental challenges faced by the current human generation owing to its deviation from its hunter-gather origins to dependence on industrial food. Unquestionably, most of the foods in groceries, local markets, supermarkets are products of modern industrial processes. Crops are now being grown in large quantities and cheaply, and farmers have been insured from heavy crop losses resulting from pest or disease attack. Some of the typical practices that have enabled this include the use of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides. Industrial foods should be abolished because they are hazardous to people, animals and the environment and replaced with organic foods which have more nutrients, are less expensive, and more benefits to humans and the environment. These industrial operations have been of great importance in increasing food production, meeting the global food demand and maximizing profits in agriculture. However, a close evaluation of industrial food shows that it threatens to drive the people it is saving from starvation to extinction. Without much bargain, industrial food should be abolished because it is hazardous to human beings, animals and the environment; instead, people should make a massive shift to organic food which not only allows them to benefit from all its nutrients but also, it is friendly and less costly to their bodies and the planet. Problems of Industrial Food and Their Solutions There’s no denying that the impacts of industrial agricultural are far-reaching and pose a real threat on the environment, animals and more particular, human beings. Obesity One of the major problems that has come along with industrial food and which is less associated with organic food is obesity. It is important that people get enough food to eat. However, it is something else when the same food turns around and makes people bigger than they should be and thus threaten their survival. A large quantity of industrial food is one of the reasons why the US is flooding with adverts promoting cheap and fast food like chicken, pizza, fries, burgers and other readily-available meals (facts .com 2012).Weber (2009) describes this food as adulterated food because they entice with their depictions of fatty, starchy and juicy essences. This has made people to much more than they should per meal. Solution The solution to the problem of obesity is for people to insist on buying and consuming organic and this food should be taken in their processed forms. Eating them in their non-processed forms will ensure that they maintain their natural texture and fiber content. This is important in regulating food intake unlike softened and salted or sweetened foods. Toxicity and Other Harmful Health Effects Some of the chemicals like artificial fertilizers and pesticides used in the production of industrial food find their way to these foods. Some of them are easily washed by rain but some diffuse through the leaves and fruits. This content can be significantly high when there is no rain to wash some of it off. During the rainy season, the chemicals washed in to the soil find their way back to the plant as it absorbs nutrients from the soil. This can be particularly dangerous if the root tubers of the plant are used as human food. This explanation reveals that on ingesting such fruits, vegetables or roots, people will not only be eating food that has low nutritional value but also, that contains toxins. The same applies to products from factory-raised animals. Their products, especially meat, fat and milk could contain the drugs, contains hormones or antibiotics they fed on. For example, residual chemicals like dioxin, PCBs, DDTs among other pesticides concentrate themselves on animal fat and people who will eat them instead of organic animal fat will be exposed to these chemicals (Bond, 2010). The flow of these chemicals from plants and/or animals into human bodies confirms Pollan’s word that “you are what what you eat eats, too” (Pollan, 2006). That is, the animals and plants we eat feed on chemicals and so we are also ‘chemicals’. There are scientific evidences supporting this and most of which reveal that by eating industrial food, we end up ingesting and accumulating dangerous chemicals in our bodies. Solution Joel Salatin notes that people seek too much salvation from legislation. Salatin suggests that people should be empowered, taught the right philosophy and given the right information so as to make right choices (Pollan, 2006). Having known how industrial food places their lives at stake, consumers should come out loudly and establish and promote relationship marketing under which they will know the farmer from whom to buy their food because of their adherence to organic farming. Unlike government sanctions, such an action will cause farmers to have a greater integrity in their food production process and thus produce high quality products. This will be a solution not only to the problem of toxicity and other hazardous health effects but also obesity, malnutrition, and environmental pollution. Malnutrition Although industrial food has a role to play in ensuring societies meet their food demands, it also has a part to play in malnutrition. Filling the stomach with food is not what matters but the nutritional content of the food ingested. That is what industrial food has failed to consider. For example, animals that are not raised organically are fed on genetically modified foods (GMOs), antibiotics, and they survive on a very narrow nutritional range all their lives. According to the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (2006), all factory-raised animals, fish included, are fed on industrial high-yield soy and corn mixes. The main problem here is that this feed is cheap but low in nutrition. However, they grow fast and are huge because of the influence of artificial drugs/hormones like the bovine human growth hormone (rbGH). D’Silva (2003) explains that these chemicals fatten the parts of the animal that the consumer pays for example, for a cow to produce a lot of milk or a hen to yield a lot of eggs. These animals are also a product of genetic manipulation. This shows that these factory-raised animals are raised in an unhealthy environment compared to their organically-raised counterparts who eat organic feed and a wider range of nutrients and so the nutritional value of their products like beef, milk and eggs is lower. It therefore follows that by depending on the products of the factory-raised animals, people are simply ingesting food that has low nutritional value. Also, due to their low prices and large quantities, a significant percentage of industrial food passes through food processing industries before reaching the final consumer. This processing is important for purposes of adding flavors, making them easily edible and adding preservatives. However, food processing robs them of their nutritional components and therefore what we get from the grocers, shops and supermarkets are but largely empty calories. In addition, the chemicals added to enhance their shelf-life and, the fats, sugar or salt added to enhance or create flavor have made this foods to have high contents of saturated fat, sodium and chemicals. These additives are naturally a mess on the human kidneys they overwork themselves trying to remove chemicals and excess salts. High sodium contents and saturated fats increase the chances of heart diseases. There also other adverse effects on the human body from these foods. Solution Reliance on industrial food could be justified by claims that organic food is expensive. The solution to this is simple. What people need to do is shop smartly and use natural methods to make some of the products obtained industrial food. For example, people should purchase organic milk and use it to make cheese and butter at home instead of depending on industrial cheese and butter. By eating organic foods, people will be reducing their exposure to these chemicals. In addition, consumers themselves to establish and promote “relationship marketing” to encourage all people to buy their food exclusively from farmers who follow the pre-industrial form of agriculture. People should also be encouraged to set up their small home gardens for growing some of the foodstuff they buy daily from the market like vegetables. Many people could fear that organic farming does not produce as much as industrial agriculture the solution to this is simple. Some of the free lands should be given to organic farmers and to make sure that agriculture preserves the state of the environment, these farmers should practice agro-forestry. This will ensure that although a significant portion of the land will be under agriculture, there will also be a significant amount of tree cover. Most important, a huge percentage of these trees should be fruit trees. This means that within a few years, the market will flood with organic fruits. All farmers should ensure they leave a strip of about ten meters from the streams to ensure that most of the dirt and soil washed from their farms do not end up in streams. To utilize this section, fruit trees which do not take up a lot of water can be planted. The Environment Apart from impacting on human health, industrial food production has detrimental effects on the status and quality of the environment which in turn affects human health, directly and indirectly. One of the common practices in industrial food production is mono-cropping where a single farm specializes in producing one type of crop. This practice leads to a quick depletion of soil nutrients compared to when different plant species are grown together and they utilize and replenish nutrients in various levels of the ground. For example, a pure corn plantation depletes the soil of nitrogen and legumes are required to replenish this naturally. A single crop stand is also more susceptible to light, bad weather and insects and adding to the problem of depleted soil nutrients, mono-cropping has led to overdependence on artificial fertilizers and pesticides. These chemical substances finally find their way into the food produced as well as underground water and, water bodies like rivers and lakes. By using fertilizer instead of their vast volumes of manure, industrial farms lead to manure overspills which contaminate rivers and wells with E-Coli and other health threatening pathogens. As people ingest these foods and water, they also ingest these pathogens, fertilizers and pesticides. Farmers inhale some of these chemicals as they apply them to their farms and their health is directly affected. Solution The major solution to environmental pollution by industrial food is maintaining a healthy balance of the soil in a way that it improves soil fertility through the return to pre-industrial agriculture. Some of the techniques for achieving this include adherence to natural conditions, recycling waste products back to the system and making a minimal use of chemicals. These practices will eliminate the need to control the environment using chemicals. Their overall result is that they will protect the farmer’s health, underground and surface water, habitats and the general neighborhood health. To minimize the depletion of soil nutrients and encourage replenishing, crop farm rotation should be encouraged including the rotation between crops and crops as well as crops and animal production. In addition, mixed cropping and mixed farming should also be practiced in every farm. This will be important in availing crop residues rich in different nutrients. Excess crop residues will be used as fodder for feeding animals. For example, animals will be fed corn stocks and empty cobs will be crushed to make them palatable to the animals. These feeds will increase the production of organic milk. At the same time, animal wastes will be used as natural fertilizers or manure which will be important in increasing crop yields from organic farms and eliminate the need to depend on artificial fertilizers. As for pest control, traditional pesticides should be used. For example, hashes have been found to control certain types of insects. Research should also be conducted to identify mixed cop combinations that will minimize the chances of disease and pest attacks. Basically, here should be a move to biological methods of pest and disease control. Animal rights Animal right is also an issue of concern in industrial food production. Unlike organic animals that are raised in a free natural environment, factory-raised animals are treated like commodities. They are kept contained tightly in confined pens and only have the chance to move a few feet per day all their lives. This is cruelty to animals as it limits their freedom to free-ranching and access to fresh air. Toxic gases like ammonia makes them more susceptible to respiratory diseases. This treatment also deprives animals of important nutrients in their bodies. As seen in chicken their confinement makes them to lack iron and calcium in their bodies and their reaction to this is cannibalism. The feeding of animals on synthetic growth hormones makes them to fatten faster and in unnatural ways. As an outcome, these animals often suffer from heart attacks, viruses, broken legs and seizures as their organs and legs are crushed by the heavy body parts that consumers are interested in (Farm Sanctuary, 2009). Some of the diseases resulting from tight enclosures could to be transferred to humans. For example, cattle enclosed and get to feed on remains of the same species could suffer from spongiform encephalopathy, a disease that destroys the brain and the central nervous system of cows and which can be passed to people who eat these cows (Bond 2010). Solution Solution to cruelty to animals is to promote free ranching of all types of farm animals. This ranching is important in ensuring that these animals and birds have sufficient space for moving about and most critical, in ensuring they are accessible to various types of feed which in turn enhances the quality of their products. Farm rotation is important in ensuring that these animals have sufficient space for grazing. Farmers should also try to mix animals that do not depend on similar types of feed such as poultry and cattle keeping or mix it with fruit production. Conclusion As a matter of fact, it is not just processed foods that have been changed by science but also, whole foods like vegetables and fruits that have been treated with various pesticides and chemical fertilizers. If no action is taken to end the dependence on industrial food, then human beings will continue to suffer the negative consequences of industrial food. There will be unending and fruitless efforts to end lethal diseases like obesity, heart diseases and diseases of the nervous system. This means that the human society will not have benefitted from reduced costs of food production. These funds will have to be transferred to costly health mitigation practices meant to clear the effects of industrial food. By eating products of genetically modified industrial food, human beings also stand a risk of becoming genetically modified to and continued gene alteration could make them more susceptible to dangerous diseases including animal diseases. References Bond, A. (2010). Eco-Friendly Reasons to Buy Organic Meat & Dairy: http://www.care2.com/greenliving/why-buy-organic-dairy-meat.html#ixzz1u7TTV06U D’Silva, J. (2003). "Faster, Cheaper, Sicker," New Scientist, 15 Nov. 2003 – about the human health and animal welfare impact of industrial farming. http://www.belsandia.com/factory-farming.html Facts.com (2012). Fast Food Nutrition Facts: Escape The Junk Food Trap. Retrieved from http://www.fast-food-and-nutrition-facts.com/ Farm Sanctuary (2009). About factory farms and animal cruelty. http://www.belsandia.com/factory-farming.html Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (2006). "Below-Cost Feed Crops/ An Indirect Subsidy for Industrial Animal Factories."IATP, June 2006. Pollan, M. (2006). The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals. Penguin Books. Weber, K. (2009). Food Inc.: A Participant Guide: How Industrial Food is Making Us Sicker, Fatter, and Poorer-And What You Can Do About It (1st Edition). New York. PublicAffairs. Read More